Following in the footsteps of fellow Golden Globe winner and “Time’s Up” pin wearer James Franco, Aziz Ansari is dealing with a young woman’s chilling story about him.
In a hellish-date story posted on babe.net, a woman given the name “Grace” tells how she met the “Master of None” star and eventually found herself being victimized in his apartment.
“Grace compares Ansari’s sexual mannerisms to those of a horny, rough, entitled 18-year-old,” wrote Katie Way on Babe. “She said so to her friends via text after the date and said the same thing to me when we spoke.”
Way added: “Ansari built his career on being cute and nice and parsing the signals women send to men and the male emotions that result and turning them into award-winning, Madison Square Garden-filling comedy.”
On Sunday, Ansari, 34, issued his mea culpa.
He wrote:
“In September of last year, I met a woman at a party. We exchanged numbers. We texted back and forth and eventually went on a date. We went out to dinner, and afterwards we ended up engaging in sexual activity, which by all indications was completely consensual.
“The next day, I got a text from her saying that although ‘it may have seemed okay,’ upon further reflection, she felt uncomfortable. It was true that everything did seem okay to me, so when I heard that it was not the case for her, I was surprised and concerned. I took her words to heart and responded privately after taking the time to process what she had said.
“I continue to support the movement that is happening in our culture. It is necessary and long overdue.”
In The Atlantic, Caitlin Flanagan writes about the humiliation of Ansari, saying what Grace and the article writer created was 3,000 words of revenge porn.
“The clinical detail in which the story is told is intended not to validate her account as much as it is to hurt and humiliate Ansari,” Flanagan said. “Together, the two women may have destroyed Ansari’s career, which is now the punishment for every kind of male sexual misconduct, from the grotesque to the disappointing.”
The debate on Twitter:
I saw someone tweet something like “if what Aziz Ansari did was sexual assault then every woman I know has been sexually assaulted” and like yeah, actually.
— Arnesa (@Rrrrnessa) January 15, 2018
Wouldn’t it be possible for someone who is inclined to defend Aziz Ansari, to do so without revealing such contempt for the woman saying he left her feeling disrespected & coerced? https://t.co/jBxWVqgXgI pic.twitter.com/mQDtCBrjmv
— Alex Burns (@alexburnsNYT) January 15, 2018
Ridiculous Accusations Against Aziz Ansari Completely Undermine The #MeToo Movement https://t.co/mGaMz102BB pic.twitter.com/ZEpN2aWpYX
— Ben Shapiro (@benshapiro) January 15, 2018
Okay okay my thoughts on the Aziz Ansari thing:
1. If you don’t want to have sex, don’t take up an invitation to go back to a guy’s house.
2. You’re going to cause mixed messages if you perform oral sex, receive oral sex, then say you felt uncomfortable.
3. All feminists suck.— Ashley Rae (@Communism_Kills) January 15, 2018
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. Consent alone — even “yes means yes” or “enthusiastic yes” isn’t a sufficient basis for sexual morality, and the Aziz Ansari incident helps illustrate why: https://t.co/COsI42Rehg
— David French (@DavidAFrench) January 15, 2018
A lot of men will read that post about Aziz Ansari and see an everyday, reasonable sexual interaction. But part of what women are saying right now is that what the culture considers “normal” sexual encounters are not working for us, and oftentimes harmful.
— Jessica Valenti (@JessicaValenti) January 14, 2018
This is the part of #MeToo that frightens me. Deeply. When we women fail to take responsibility for our own choices,including as in this case,disappointing sexual encounters and engage in unabashed revenge by way of Op-Ed.
https://t.co/MpenduITQc— Annika H Rothstein (@truthandfiction) January 15, 2018